“With gambling expansions throughout the years, and most recently the inclusion of sports betting, anyone can carry a gambling device in their hand: their phone. With one-third of surveyed Hoosiers participating in some form of online gambling in the last year, and younger adults displaying a higher likelihood for this type of gambling, the numbers are concerning.”
—Mary Lay, operations director of Prevention Insights and program manager of the Indiana Problem Gambling Awareness Program at Indiana University, after the school published a study showing that 89 percent of adults in Indiana participated in some form of gambling last year
“Many people like the occasional bet, but the advent of 24/7 betting apps on smartphones, marketed to the public through billions of pounds and dollars in advertising across all forms of media, has placed high stakes gambling machines in almost every pocket.”
—Anna Bateson, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, explaining why the Guardian has stopped accepted gambling advertisements
“We are skeptical of the DraftKings proposal, which seems like a desperate move to slow down Fanatics and PointsBet from completing a deal. The purchase price and other financial commitments will total more than $500 million—so they are using the majority of their projected year-end cash just to try to block us.”
—Michael Rubin, CEO of Fanatics, addressing the recent over-the-top bid from DraftKings to acquire PointsBet’s U.S. assets
“We asked the city and the community to bet on Bally’s, and like every good casino, we pay off winning bets. We want to move as quickly as we can. This facility and the permanent will be our flagship, but also I think will be the flagship of Illinois gaming.”
—Bally’s Chairman Soo Kim, after the company’s temporary casino at Medinah Temple received preliminary approval
“There was a very concrete proposal under discussion and Oakland had gone above and beyond to clear hurdles, including securing funding for infrastructure, providing an environmental review and working with other agencies to finalize approvals. The reality is the A’s ownership had insisted on a multibillion dollar, 55-acre project that included a ballpark, residential, commercial and retail space. In Las Vegas, for whatever reason, they seem satisfied with a 9-acre leased ballpark on leased land. If they had proposed a similar project in Oakland, we feel confident a new ballpark would already be under construction.”
—A statement from the office of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao in response to quotes from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred about the city’s refusal to cooperate with the A’s prior to the team’s departure
